I need details about health care system in England and also in Canada

[maynard]

I was talking with someone from England a few years ago and she mentioned public and private insurance. I need some more details in order to argue this with my crazy Republican colleague. She uses the Rush/Hannity talking points. I need to counteract with the real facts.

Thanks in advance.....

[LuvNewcastle]

1. There's some info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_United_Kingdom
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

[Lasher]

2. OK

Has Canada got the Cure?

Physicians for a National Health Program

[rollingrock]

3. The Sicko documentary is a good source of info

if you haven't seen it already.

Has a great introduction and overview of single-payer systems in countries like Canada, England, France, even Cuba. I would suggest you tell your Republican friend to watch it as well. Sicko has been known to change a lot of minds, and even praised by many conservatives who have seen it. The entire film can be seen on-line here:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=sicko&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

[mwooldri]

4. What are the Rush/Hannity talking points about UK healthcare?

Perhaps I can refute them easily: I'm from the UK, left 10 years ago but still have family back home. My sister works as a nurse; a good old schoolfriend of mine is a surgeon.

NHS - National Health Service: covers everyone. Good points: pretty much free at the point of delivery. For most urgent care needs you can phone doctor, go to doctor same day, get given prescription, go to drug store and get it filled... most it will cost is about $12 in US money, and there's lots of ways out of this cost. Bad points: non urgent healthcare is rationed in places. Vast majority of people are sorted out now within 18 weeks, which is the given target from diagnosis to final treatment for any non emergency medical need. They are trying to get the cancer wait lists down even further to 1 month from diagnosis to treatment.

However given that the NHS *does* have waiting lists, private companies fill the gap. You can pay outright if you have the money of course, but private insurance does exist; BUPA being the bes tknown (and probably biggest) private health insurer in the UK. They run as a non-profit, don't have major shareholders - though there are for-profits too. They sometimes have their hospitals, sometimes they contract NHS hospitals to do the work for them. However since the NHS is brilliant when it comes to emergency care, it has not been unknown for private patients at private hospitals to be suddenly rushed to the NHS hospital when something goes wrong and the private hospital doesn't have the expertise or capability to treat that patients' condition.

Rush and Hannity need to actually experience the NHS first hand. If they saw the introduction of a NHS-type system in the USA, and saw it run for about 10 years, after those ten years they may still be ranting and raving against it but they will not be wanting it to be abolished. Margaret Thatcher wasn't exactly the NHS's best friend, but she did not want to get rid of it.

Also the NHS is *very* efficient, if somewhat spartan. The entire UK population is covered at an expense of about £100 billion a year - say, $150 billion given exchange rate of $1.50 to £1.00. Medicare's budget - which covers LESS people than the UK is $440 billion.

Mark.

[exboyfil]

5. One thing not mentioned is that most healthcare workers in

NHS are government employees. Such a system in U.S. would require a dramatic restructuring of practically everything in our health care system (not to say that this is bad, just pointing out a fact as I understand it. Correct me if I am wrong).

[mwooldri]

7. NHS employees aren't really governmental employees...

...they don't work for a specific branch of the UK government directly. They are employed by a specific "Trust". However the bulk of doctors are actually self-employed and contract their services to a particular NHS Trust or in some cases multiple Trusts. Trusts can do private work too; not just stuck providing public health services.

They are free to join a union and many do. In some sectors, particularly nursing, there's often a choice of unions. And yes, they can go on strike, though because of their critical mission rarely do.

If the US were to go NHS-style then yes, radical restructuring would have to happen. Instead of running in a "for-profit" manner (even the non-profit health care groups run like for-profit groups in the USA, they just re-invest what they would have made as profit instead of distributing it to shareholders) they'd have to get used to deficit spending: the groups that don't deficit spend so much get praised, the groups that deficit spend too much get fired. Groups would be given X amount of money to take care of their community and that's all they get.

[Pharlo]

6. Best side by side comparison I've found for five major

health care programs. This page will give you a brief comparison. For a more indepth look at any of the programs, serf the site. And, if you get time, I'd recommend watching the streamlined program.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/